REPRIMAND/Inequality: End intentionally biased laws restricting lawful acts

These last months have seen an unprecedented rise in the volume of legislation biased against one segment of the law-abiding population.  Virginia and Texas have legislated that women seeking abortions must undergo a medically unnecessary transvaginal exam.  Texas has also signed into law a statewide ban on medicaid funding for any doctor or clinic that performs, or is even affiliated with, abortion.   The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a bill that (1) prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, (2) defining life as beginning at conception (a.k.a. Personhood) thereby (3) banning many forms of contraception by classifying them as murder, and (4) requiring transvaginal ultrasounds for women who still seek abortions.   The Oklahoma State Senate, perhaps mildly more moderate than Missouri, has only passed a personhood bill.  The U.S. Senate tried to allow employers to deny women insurance coverage for contraception, and when that failed, Arizona took up the cause with gusto, adding that employers can fire women who use birth control if it violates their religious views.  The list goes on and on...

Spin the stories any way you want, the fact remains that these laws only impact women who are performing or engaging in lawful acts.  These laws represent blatant legislative biases of elephantine proportions (a fitting reference since they are penned almost exclusively by Republicans).  These laws are written mostly by men, and intended almost exclusively to restrict the rights of women.

The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law.  Typically we read this as meaning everyone reaps the same rewards from the same rights.  Shouldn't equal protection also require that everyone suffers equivalent restrictions under the law.  If a state has the legal ability to deny, limit, restrict or alter a woman's access to lawful activities, then surely men must suffer equivalent legislative consequences.  Otherwise, these laws have introduced intentional bias.     

"Separate and unequal" is not the GOP motto, but it seems to be their current practice.  Unless states and the Federal government require equal restriction as well as equal protection, what is there to stop a political party from marginalizing any group of citizens through the same kind of legislative bullying as is currently underway?   

We propose the REPRIMAND/Inequality (REsponsible Pairing of Restrictive & Invasive MANDated Inequality) law, that requires that all restrictive or invasive laws which disproportionally affect only one segment of the population must be paired with equivalent restrictions against the rest of the citizenry.  In other words, if you limit a woman's access to insurance coverage for birth control, then you must limit men's coverage for an equivalent condition, such as vasectomy.  If you wish to ban gay marriage, you must ban some equivalent set of rights of all straight couples.  Undo unto others what they have undone unto you.  Otherwise, we are not all equal before the law.

4 comments:

  1. old and not handling this bloggy, commenting, whatever stuff well, but can you add to your list of mandates a provision that ANY and ALL persons registering to run for and currently holding ANY public office in any state MUST take and pass their state's stnadardized high school graduation exam. Just love to see teachers enter the statehouses on a given day, #2 pencils and test booklets in hand and announce that it's test time and anyone who fails is out of a job.

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    1. Drug tests too. I would like to see our representatives in Washington DC taking drug tests. If we have to take them to get or keep a job, you should have to also.

      The High School testing wouldn't do any good. Most of the people running this country are Lawyers. I'm sure they did well enough in school that they could pass a proficency test.

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  2. I believe in everyone's rights too but we could eliminate the noggest need for abortions if... Women would refuse to have sex unless their date, boyfriend or husband would wear a condom. They aren't perfect but they work the majority of the time. It's that simple. Cut down the need for abortions and the protesters will move on to something else. Then for those urgent abortions like Rape or the health of the mother you won't have to fight through a wall of protesters.

    From my past experience I'm sure those Liberal Cyber Bullies will attack me for my comments. From this past election I've learned that the majority of the liberals have now become the people they hate. I encountered a group of intollerant liars. They re-posted things Democrats were saying during the 2004 election stating that Republicans said them this election.

    I'm not saying all Liberals and Democrats are cyber bullies, liars and intollerant but the numbers are growing. I'm the only Republican in my apartment complex and I get along with EVERYONE. I can't say the same for the Democrats in our apartment complex.

    Rule #1) Be nice to everyone. You never know when that stranger will save your life.

    Rule #2) Walk slow when you're with your children. They have small legs and can't keep up with you.

    Rule #3) It's the little things in life that hurt the most. You can sit on a mountain but you can't sit on a pin.

    Rule #4) Keep an eye on young kids in public. There are a lot of sick people out there and their numbers are growing.

    Rule #5) Religion is only bad when people twist it for their own purpose or profit. Is there anything wrong with a person like Jesus who went around preaching love and forgiveness? The first person that says "He didn't exist", re-read the previous sentence.

    I'm Catholic and some people like to attack Catholics but I was raised.... To love everyone no matter what their sex, race, religion or sexual orientation is. That was tought to me by our Priests, yes, Priests. Unlike some places, we were lucky to never have had a child molester priest. Say what you want but honestly we never did. It wasn't a "hidden by the church" thing, it was a "we were blessed" thing.

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    1. "If...women would refuse to have sex with their date, boyfriend, husband without a condom." Your syntax lays full blame for unwanted pregnancies on careless women having frivolous sex. This both misogynistic and a hasty generalization. I'd say you just violated your own rules, numbers 1 and 5.

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